After the war , in 1946, the National Institute for War Documentation in Holland , known as the ‘RIOD’ (Rijksinstituut voor Oorlogsdocumentatie) collected the footage filmed by the Jewish camp prisoner Rudolf Werner Breslauer spring 1944 in the Westerbork transit camp.

The RIOD glued fragments together probably, and also extracted fragments (Ref 1) . In 1948 parts of the Westerbork film were given on loan to the Dutch Polygoon-Profilti cinema newsreel company for use in one of the weekly Polygoon cinema news items (week 15) : the 1948 trial against Rauter – the ‘Proces Rauter’ . That cinema news was posted May 20 (20190520) as : Westerbork Film in ‘Proces Rauter’ 1948 at settela.com (Ref 2).

Later , in 1958, this ‘RIOD film’ went on loan to the Dutch Filmmuseum (now EYE Film Museum) for conservation, and in 1986 that raw film footage – 9 reels of film – was handed over by the Filmmuseum to the RVD (Rijksvoorlichtingsdienst) , the Dutch National Centre for Information. The RVD conservator glued together these reels into the 4 parts (Acte 1 , Acte 2 , Acte 3 , and Acte 4) that have become known as the “Westerbork film”.

The RVD, however, had not received all footage from the Filmmuseum .
Research published in the 1997 Dutch book ‘Kamp Westerbork gefilmd’ by Koert Broersma and Gerard Rossing (editors Dirk Mulder and Ben Prinsen; ISBN 9023232658) traced missing film fragments (Ref 3)

The 1948 Dutch Polygoon cinema news extracts were not all assembled back in the Westerbork film reels .
And not all footage given on loan for that ‘Polygoon news’ ended up in that news item.
The clips actually used in the 1948 week 15 Polygoon cinema newsreel on the Rauter trial were presented in yesterday’s post (20190806) : “Westerbork Film Fragments…1948 Polygoon News” (Ref 4).
Link : https://settela.com/2019/08/06/westerbork-film-fragments-1948-polygoon-news/

‘Lost’ fragments were traced on another reel of Polygoon 35 mm footage copied from the original 16 mm film (intended for cinema use) consisting of fragments both used in the news and surplus fragments not used in the news – including 4 ‘lost’ clips that were never reassembled in the Westerbork film. This 1948 Polygoon version #48298 (cat.nr. NO-48-09-001) is posted here. These are the 4 additional ‘lost’ clips :
1. Railway wagon 13 with man on ladder and camp leaders: 6 sec. (incl my 6 sec leader in this post starting at timeline ~ 4 min 1 sec)
2. Gemmeker and a soldier looking at the train: 4 sec. (incl my 6 sec leader in this post starting probably at timeline ~ 5 min 41 sec)
3/4. Gemmeker and a soldier, with a nurse in white uniform in the background (actually 2 scenes): 9 sec (incl my 6 sec leader in this post starting at timeline ~ 5 min 45 sec)

As discussed with the presentation of the full unedited Westerbork Film recently (Ref. 1), the collection of the film footage was started in 1946 by the ‘RIOD’ Rijksinstituut voor Oorlogsdocumentatie (National Institute for War Documentation).

According to the inventory of the RIOD from 1958 – when the film reels were handed over to the Nederlands Filmmuseum (Dutch Film Museum) – the Westerbork Film (https://youtu.be/8E-IWGjbGZM ) basically consisted of 9 film reels.

Over the years fragments have been extracted from the ‘Westerbork film’ on several occasions for screening in news or documentary (Ref. 2).

In 1948 ‘Polygoon’ Dutch cinema news (Polygoon Hollands Nieuws) got footage for use in the reportage of the trial in The Hague of Hanns A. Rauter, an Austrian who was the highest SS official in Nazi-occupied Holland and who was tasked with setting up the camps in Westerbork and other dutch cities, and the arrests , internment and deportation of Dutch Jews and other groups of Dutch people , Roma, Sinti, resistance workers.

① memo 20190805 ~ Mare Manuschenge ~ Music Roma Memorial Berlin ~ Memorial to the Sinti and Roma Victims of National Socialism – located between the Reichstag and the Brandenburg Gate in Berlin, Germany – filmed in 2013.

The monument is dedicated to the memory of the estimated 500,000 European Roma and Sinti that were murdered during the Holocaust – called Porajmos or Pharrajimos in the Romani language (“the Devouring” or “Destruction”) – the genocide of the European Sinti and Roma peoples by the German Nazis and their fascist allies ( http://www.romasintigenocide.eu/en/home ).

The memorial by the Israeli artist Dani Karavan consists of a circular pool of water with a triangular stone in the center upon which a fresh flower is placed daily.

Romeo Franz:
Romani Rose, the chairman of the Central Council of the Sinti and Roma, called me in 2012 and said he was looking for a violinist who could play just one single note at the ceremony. I tried, but at some point I couldn’t stand this note any longer. Instead I imitated a whistle that Sinti often use to call their children. It’s a sound that each of us recognise, it’s a bit like a mark of identification, a signal. Then I transposed it onto the gypsy minor scale. Shortly before the memorial was completed, I met with Dani Caravan, the Israeli architect who designed the memorial, at the construction site, and he said, “That’s it!” For me, it was possibly the most significant thing I’ve ever achieved in my life.
From : The Handreader’s Tale via https://www.kulturstiftung-des-bundes.de/en/magazine/magazine_26-1/the_handreaders_tale.html

① memo 20190804 ~ Porajmos Memorial Sinti Roma Europe ~
Memorial to the Sinti and Roma Victims of National Socialism, filmed in 2013 in the Tiergarten (close to other Holocaust memorials) in Berlin – between the Reichstag and the Brandenburg Gate, in Germany.

The monument is dedicated to the memory of the estimated 500,000 European Roma and Sinti that were murdered during the Holocaust – called Porajmos or Pharrajimos in the Romani language (“the Devouring” or “Destruction”) – the genocide of the European Sinti and Roma peoples by the German Nazis and their fascist allies ( http://www.romasintigenocide.eu/en/home ).

August 2 is European Roma Holocaust Memorial Day commemorating this genocide of Roma people during World War II. Declared by the European Parliament in 2015 (Resolution 2015/2615), the day marks the anniversary of the extermination of around 3,000 Roma at Auschwitz-Birkenau during the night of 2 August 1944. The so-called Gypsy Camp in the Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration and extermination camp was dissolved – or “liquidated,” as the SS called it.

Settela Steinbach (9) was one of those murdered early August 1944, now 75 years ago.

The memorial (by the Israeli artist Dani Karavan) consists of a circular pool of water with a triangular stone in the center (not shown in this film) upon which a fresh flower is placed daily.

Poem “Auschwitz” by Santino Spinelli

In a ring around the pond in English and German – and in two Romani dialects on a stone – are the words of the poem “Auschwitz” by Santino Spinelli (artist name Alexian), a Rom from the Abruzzi region of Italy – a musician, poet, teacher, composer and essayist.

Music “Mare Manuschenge” by Romeo Franz

At the site you faintly hear the sound, a note of a lonely violin from a composition/sound installation titled “Mare Manuschenge” / “Our People” by Romeo Franz, a Sinto musician, composer and politician in Germany.
The sound in this film I posted is mixed from several video recordings there, with the emphasis on the sound from one video of one of the loudspeakers in the surrounding trees.

Notes

As discussed with the presentation of the full unedited Westerbork Film recently (Ref. 1), the collection of the film footage was started in 1946 by the ‘RIOD’ Rijksinstituut voor Oorlogsdocumentatie (National Institute for War Documentation).

According to the inventory of the RIOD from 1958 – when the film reels were handed over to the Nederlands Filmmuseum (Dutch Film Museum) – the Westerbork Film (https://youtu.be/8E-IWGjbGZM ) basically consisted of 9 film reels ; and that inventory also mentioned a 10th reel (‘reel 9a’) with scenes of a ‘church service’ and ‘disassembly workshop for motors’. That reel was never again mentioned after 1958, had disappeared, but was rediscovered in the Film Museum with catalog number F1015 during research in the 1990s (Ref. 2). That story and the footage F1015 ( https://youtu.be/-SmYdFLG5N8 ) was posted yesterday (Ref. 3).

Actually very interesting footage demonstrating that Rudolf Breslauer was filming the animation and intertitles (title cards) as listed in the film scenario (pore on that later in another post). Here that unedited (upscaled) footage of F1014.

Recently, I posted the ‘Westerbork Film – full version (RVD)’, with the details of what has been known as the Westerbork Film (Ref. 1).

When, in 1986, the raw film footage of the Westerbork Film moved from the archives of the Filmmuseum in Holland to the archive of the Rijksvoorlichtingsdienst (RVD – ie the Dutch National Centre for Information), the RVD conservator mounted the film reels together into 4 parts : Akte 1 , Akte 2 , Akte 3 , and Akte 4 (Acts 1 to 4) of the Westerbork Film.

More recently -in the 1990s – during the inventory and further research of the film (Ref 1) it was concluded by Gerard Rossing and Koert Boersma, that altogether 9 film reels had ended up in the Westerbork Film.
Reels number 1 and 2 were glued together in ‘Act 1 (Akte 1)’, reels 3 and 4 in Act 2, reels 5 and 6 in Acte 3, and reels 7, 8 and 9 in Acte 4 (Ref. 1, 2, 3).

That research also (re)discovered two new film reels – that had been forgotten in the archives of the Filmmuseum.

One reel – originally the 10th reel of the Westerbork film – and numbered in the 1950s as reel 9a was considered in poor condition and had been classified (cat. # F1015) and forgotten in the Filmmuseum archives (Ref. 4, 5).

The Westerbork Film – a silent film – is unique…the only authentic documentary footage filmed in a Nazi camp – a waiting room for death in the Netherlands for more than 100,000 Jews, and Roma, Sinti, and resistance workers. A documentary filmed 75 years ago, spring 1944, in the Westerbork transit camp, by the German-Jewish camp prisoner Rudolf Werner Breslauer, who had been working already some 2 years as a photographer in the camp. A ‘Kulturfilm’ commissioned by camp commander, SS-Obersturmbannführer, Albert Konrad Gemmeker, to convince the Gestapo headquarters of Westerbork’s vital production value.

The Westerbork camp had been set up by the Dutch government before the war in Holland, in 1939, as a central refugees camp for Jewish refugees from Nazi-Germany.
In 1942 , when the Nazi’s decided to start ‘Entjüdung’ of the Netherlands, they took over the camp and named it Polizeiliches Judendurchgangslager Westerbork , for use as central transit camp for deportation of mainly Jews, and Roma, Sinti, and resistance people to eastern Europe.

Rudolf Breslauer started filming March 1944 – around the same time the camp status changed to ‘Arbeitslager’. (Ref. 1)

This film on the daily life of the Westerbork prisoners was added in 2017 to the Memory of the World Register of Unesco. (Ref. 2)

Iconic is the image of Settela – the girl with the headscarf -between the wagon doors of the deportation train to Auschwitz.
These few seconds are shown in the 1 minute slow-motion film Settela at Settela.com.

Images of the deportation train have been used in many documentaries over the years – such as our 2012 documentary ‘Transport XX to Auschwitz’.

Actually , however, the Westerbork film has as yet not been presented online or elsewhere as a full film – only in parts : as either Acte 1 , Acte 2 , Acte 3 , or Acte 4 for download or for streaming separately , either in low quality, small format (and generally just Acte 1) or with a rough overall edit (color-exposure grading) resulting in loss of details.
I therefore decided to first present the full film , all 4 episodes , unedited except for cropping black bars, as the : Westerbork Film ~ Full version RVD…and later focus on adaptations.

What is known as the Westerbork Film , actually is a simple montage of the available raw film footage – 9 reels of film – handed over by the (Dutch) Filmmuseum in 1986 to the Dutch National Centre for Information (the Rijksvoorlichtingsdienst, RVD).
The RVD conservator glued together these available fragments – and this ‘product’ in 4 parts (Acte 1 , Acte 2 , Acte 3 , and Acte 4) has become known as the “Westerbork film”.
Reels number 1 and 2 were glued together in ‘Acte 1’, reels 3 and 4 in Acte 2, reels 5 and 6 in Acte 3, and reels 7, 8 and 9 in Acte 4 (see below).

Conservation of footage

In the early years after the war, the Westerbork film footage travelled via different routes, roughly, in part leaving the camp with ex camp commander Gemmeker, and another part ‘directly’ from the camp … to land partly in the nearby Drents Museum and partly in eg. the Department of Justice and next finally in a collection started in 1946 in the ‘RIOD’ Rijksinstituut voor Oorlogsdocumentatie (National Institute for War Documentation) – now ‘NIOD’ – Institute for War, Holocaust and Genocide Studies.
The RIOD glued fragments together probably, and fragments were extracted too, and lent for use eg. in the 1948 trial against Rauter, the trial against Gemmeker, and for use in the 60s dutch TV series ‘De bezetting’ (The Occupation) presented by Loe de Jong (journalist, historian, and RIOD director from 1945-1979). For conservation this ‘RIOD film’ went on loan in 1958 to the Filmmuseum (now EYE Film Museum), and in 1986 the footage went to the RVD.

The RVD did not receive all footage from the Filmmuseum – the fragments extracted by the RIOD for use in the trials and TV series were lacking and two reels just remained in the Filmmuseum vault.

Tracing extracted fragments , and the discovery of new images

Reel D1596 – The 1948 Dutch Polygoon cinema news extracts were not all assembled back in the Westerbork film reels – see the recent post 20190520 ~ Westerbork Film in ‘Proces Rauter’ 1948 at settela.com .
Also , not all footage given on loan for that ‘Polygoon news’ ended up in that news item. That ‘Polygoon’ footage copied onto 35 mm film – both the used and non-used fragments – were kept in the Dutch Filmmusuem on a so-called reel number D1596.

Research published in the 1997 Dutch book ‘Kamp Westerbork gefilmd’ by Koert Broersma and Gerard Rossing (editors Dirk Mulder and Ben Prinsen; ISBN 9023232658) traced the extracted film fragments, and further re-discovered film fragments with comparatively poorer quality on two reels – F1015 and F1014 (Ref. 1) :

Reel F1015 — F1015 (known till 1958 as reel 9a ; but actually the 10th reel of the Westerbork film) contains 9 scenes including 2 new scenes (not in the RVD Westerbork film): the religious service held March 5, 1944 in the Grote Zaal (Great Hall) and the scene of a woman on a ladder working on a signpost. This reel had remained in the Filmmuseum vault.

Reel F1014 seemed lost in the archives of the Filmmuseum and was denoted then ‘Afvalmateriaal/uitschot’ , that is ‘Trash’.

All footage is now kept at the Netherlands Institute of Image and Sound .

Rudolf Breslauer and family

Rudolf Breslauer (1904-1944) was in Westerbork for over two and a half years with his wife Bella Weismann, daughter Ursula, and sons Mischa and Stephan.
In Sep 1944 they were transported to Auschwitz via Theresiënstadt, and murdered in the gas chamber, except Ursula who survived the war and went to Israel in 1948, where she and her husband Chaim Moses set up their own company. Her name has since been Chanita Moses – she has children and many grandchildren.